by Stan McNeal, Special for USA TODAY Sports

by Stan McNeal, Special for USA TODAY Sports

When a team has 97 wins, outscores the opposition by a league-most 187 runs and reaches the World Series, you might think it would refrain from change.

Not the St. Louis Cardinals. Despite playing in the World Series in 2013, they weren't content to stay the course. Among other things, they saw a need for speed.

The Cardinals wanted so much to crank up their quickness quotient that they traded the hometown hero of their 2011 World Series championship. Barely three weeks after losing the World Series to the Boston Red Sox, the Cardinals sent David Freese to the Los Angeles Angels in a deal that brought them Peter Bourjos. If Bourjos isn't the game's fastest center fielder, line them up in a race and he'd be the one that Cincinnati Reds rookie Billy Hamilton would be looking for over his shoulder.

"He's in scoring position as soon as he gets on base," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny says of the 27-year-old Arizonan.

Dealing for Bourjos also gave the Cardinals a chance to pick up the pace at another position. By trading Freese, a third baseman, All-Star second baseman Matt Carpenter was able to move to his natural position and open second base for rookie Kolten Wong. A 5-8 player who can do a standing back flip, Wong immediately became the second-fastest player in the lineup. After stealing 45 bases as a team in 2013, which was last in the National League and the club's fewest since 1958, the Cardinals have two players who could top that as a tandem.

Bourjos says he wants at least 40 by himself.

"That is a good goal for me. But if I come up short, I'll be in the 30s, and that still will be a really good year," he says.

Now, doing so hardly would mean a return to Whitey Ball, the era in the 1980s when the Cardinals sped their way to three World Series berths. Forty seems modest when you remember that Vince Coleman exceeded 100 steals in three consecutive seasons from 1985-87 and Lonnie Smith, Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee each topped 50 at least once during the decade. In eight full seasons with Whitey Herzog managing them, the Cardinals had more stolen bases (1,840 from 1982-89) than they have totaled over the past 20 years (1,734 from 1995-2014).

The game, of course, changed when performance-enhancing drugs inflated power numbers. In the 10 seasons from 1995 to 2004, the majors saw five home runs for every three stolen bases. In the 1980s, the ratio was closer to one homer for every stolen base.

Even with the power drop in recent seasons, St. Louis isn't as focused on stealing bases as creating havoc on them. The Cardinals led the National League in runs last year in large part because they hit a remarkable .330 with runners in scoring position, 48 points better than any other team. (The Detroit Tigers were second.)

Realizing a repeat of their clutch hitting isn't likely and because they don't have a lot of home run hitters, the Cardinals can use their newfound speed to help take up some of the offensive slack.

"You can disrupt a lot of things on the bases and at the plate with speed," says Bourjos, an accomplished bunter. "Just show bunt on one pitch, and you can change where the fielders play. You also can make them rush the ball. You can mess with the timing of the whole defense as well as the pitcher."

Still, no one knows how much Bourjos can affect an offense over a full season. He went hitless in his first week with the Cardinals covering 13 at-bats when he did not even bunt his way on (though a highlight-reel play by Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Russell Martin robbed him of one bunt single). Limited by injuries and struggles with his bat, Bourjos played in more than 101 games once in his first four seasons.

In 2011, he hit .271 with a .327 on-base percentage and 22 stolen bases in 31 attempts. Over the next two seasons, in 156 games, he stole a total of nine bases while being caught once.

"It's tough to steal when you don't have a green light," Bourjos says.

How much freedom he'll have with his new team remains to be seen. The Cardinals reduced their attempts to steal by almost 50% in Matheny's second year as manager, and they cut down on their sacrifice bunts. Matheny stops well short of saying Bourjos will have a green light in St. Louis.

"There'll be times we let him go; there'll be times we hold him up," Matheny says. "There aren't the 100 base-steal guys anymore, like a Vince Coleman, who would run every time he was on. If you have a good throwing catcher and the pitcher is paying close attention, you take away the stolen-base option a lot of times. Regardless, that speed is a distraction. Peter needs to be conscious to always put that pressure on, to at least look like he may be going even when he's not."

To this point in his big-league career, Bourjos has used his speed far more effectively on defense than on offense. He covers so much ground in center field that when he was playing for the Angels, Mike Trout was moved to left. Bourjos needed only four batters into his first game with the Cardinals to take away a hit with a running catch.

In the same game, his speed also resulted in an error when he chased down a hit in the gap only to have the ball bounce out of his glove. It was the kind of play in which a lesser center fielder would have been chasing the ball to the fence.

Jon Jay started in center field for the past three years, but the Cardinals viewed Bourjos as an upgrade, especially defensively.

Also, unlike Jay, Bourjos is a right-handed hitter whom the Cardinals think can help offset the struggles they endured last year against left-handed pitchers. Bourjos left no doubt he had earned the everyday job in spring training by hitting .324 as Jay struggled to a .188 average. For his career, however, Jay is the more accomplished hitter with a .293 career average to Bourjos' .248 and figures to push for at-bats.

But whether or not Bourjos is hitting, the Cardinals plan to put to use an element they have been lacking for years.

"His speed is going to play no matter what," Matheny says. "It does not take a day off."